A Curated Podcast Discovery Magazine
2 min readOct 8, 2014
Last weekend team Auxy attended Hackaway #2 — by far the most awesome hacking event I’ve ever been to — where we explored the future of podcasts together with the Swedish Radio and around 40 other participants.
I’m a big fan of listening to talk audio, but I think there are two problems with how podcasting works that we wanted to try and solve:
- RSS feeds create a mess! The fact that everyone can create and distribute podcasts is awesome, but having unlimited access without great discovery turns podcasting into a mess. I usually find myself staring at long lists of episodes without having a clue which ones I’ve listened to and which ones are worth hearing.
- Streaming vs. downloading creates a mess! I still haven’t found a podcasting app that handles downloads and streaming nicely. I think most people still want to download episodes and know that they can listen without risking hiccups, high data charges, or a drained battery.
To solve these problems, we created Fijv — a curated podcast discovery magazine — built on the following promises:
- You always have 5 great audio episodes downloaded and ready to play
- Episodes from a variety of podcasters are curated by humans — you get to hear the best episodes from the best podcasters
- It’s easy to pick an episode based on how much time you have and which subject your interested in
- If you find a podcaster you like, tapping the publisher name lets you subscribe directly in your favorite podcast app
Fredrik coded the app in Swift and the whole project took less than twelve hours to finish. Here’s a short video showing the basic interactions:
Finally, a big thanks to the organizers and all the participants for making Hackaway #2 a truly awesome experience. Hope to see you next time!
